Brown Paper Parcel
by Finnhart
Summary: REWRITTEN ONESHOT. A parcel is sent directly to Kaiba Seto's desk one day. Little does he know that he has also received into his life the person who sent it. Non yaoi, bit fluffy in some places. Please read author's notes within.


**Author's Note****: **This _was_ my first YuGiOh fiction, first published 20th August 2007. Wow, long time ago! It was just a one-shot to get me warmed up for more one-shots and longer fics. I was simply playing, but having written more Yu-Gi-Oh fics, all relative to each other in terms of my own invented canon, I realised I had to come back here and give the middle section a massive overhaul, mostly to prepare for another long fic I want to write once I've finished _Take Me To The Water, _to eliminate inconsistencies and to simply eradicate poorly thought-out and less mature aspects of the story. I feel it has been heavily clogged with some sludgy dialogue, but it's there for a reason. It might seem very contrived for its own sake, but it needs to be like that to give a foundation for the new fic I will begin in the next few weeks or so.

It has changed so much, I decided to delete the old _Brown Paper Parcel_ and repost this as a 'new' fic. Please don't feel deceived!

**Disclaimer****:** All that you recognise from the Manga and TV show belongs to Kazuki Takahashi, it does not belong to me.

**Warnings****:** Swearing.

* * *

**One Shot**

**Brown Paper Parcel**

Three smart knocks on the door. That could only be Roland; he never used the intercom for some strange reason.

'Come in, Roland.'

The man never seemed bemused that Kaiba Seto always knew it was him knocking at the door. After all, he was the only one brave enough to make his presence known right outside the entrance to the dragon's den. Everyone else skittered passed the polished wood as though it was a large bath plug with a fat ugly spider squatting in it, ready to spring out.

'Well, what is it?' Seto enquired irritably. Although he knew very well that Roland always had a good reason to disturb him in his office, he couldn't help but be peeved by the interruption.

Roland did not quaver.

'A parcel came for you at the front desk, sir –'

There was a choked cough.

'_Is that it?'_ barked Seto, spluttering on his black coffee from which he had been delicately sipping. 'Roland, you know I always pick up any post that happens to be addressed to the tower at the _end of the day.'_He flopped back in his plush, leather office chair with an incredulous snort, wondering at Roland's blunder. Perhaps he didn't get enough sleep last night?

'Sir, it was delivered by hand, directly from the sender – she insisted that it was to be given to you immediately.'

Seto's interest flickered at the information.

'A woman?' he replied languidly. What fool of a secret-admirer could he track down and humiliate this time?

'What did she look like Roland? Did you see her yourself?'

Roland tilted his sea-green head ever so slightly, obviously in deep thought. He replied in an odd tone, as though choosing his words incredibly carefully.

'No sir… I didn't see her myself, but I checked the security footage. She was a mature woman, in her forties I'd say, sir. I searched our database for a profile, in case she was an ex-employee sending a chemical parcel or something of that sort, but I found nothing. As far as we know she's had no previous dealings with Kaiba Corporation… and yet…' He trailed off, head tilting the other way. Seto raised his thin eyebrows impatiently, feeling a niggling curiosity growing. 'And yet she seemed so… _familiar._ Like I _ought_ to know who she is…'

Seto leant back from where he had rested his elbows on his desk, uncurling his spidery fingers and placing a pale hand on each armrest. With a knitted brow he glared at the corner of his laptop.

'So? Where is this elusive parcel?'

Roland unfolded one arm from behind his back, where Seto had previously assumed he'd merely linked and rested them, in the smart way that body-guards-come-business-associates usually do. Seto frowned deeper. A brown-paper parcel trussed up with string. It looked so _very_ boring.

'Would you like me to leave it on your desk, sir?'

Seto nodded absently, eyes darting back to his laptop. Roland could see his superior preparing to dive right back into his workload; the way the young man began to lean forward very slowly in his chair, eyes fixed on the screen, nostrils flaring with a deep, steady intake of breath... so he placed the parcel silently on the desk, smiling inwardly at the subtle mannerisms that he was certain that only he and Mokuba were privy to, bowed respectfully and slid smoothly from the office.

Seto was about to attack the keys of his laptop furiously once more, but the stringed, brown-paper parcel was distracting him somehow. The wrapping on the nearest corner was slightly dog-eared, if he pinched it and flicked his wrist he might rip it enough just to see the corner of what was inside, if he slid his fingers over the creases in the paper he might be able to figure out what the object was, if he could just tug at that tasselled string-end… Damn it! His slender hands flew to the parcel, tearing madly at the wrapping, hissing at the impracticality of tying the thing up with a piece of string.

At last the paper and troublesome twine lay messily on the carpet beside his desk. He held the object in his hands, a vague look of uncertainty on his angular face. It appeared to be a thick photo album, a spine on the shorter side, so that the pages would be viewed in landscape. With its faded burgundy leather and intricate gold leafing, it looked like it ought to belong in an ancient library or an antique shop at least.

Very carefully Seto took the edge of the cover and began to open the book. His keen ears were met with the staccato sound of plastic sleeves un-sticking from each other and no sooner were the contents of the first page revealed, his pupils had pinpricked in bewilderment.

* * *

It was half past eleven in the evening now and Seto had been home for just a few minutes. He would have stayed until his laptop had bleeped the twelfth hour at him, but Mokuba rang him on his mobile phone, whining that his nii-sama had forgotten to come home early and eat dinner with him, like he'd promised. Seto grimaced; he hated it when he forgot about the little promises like that he'd made to Mokuba.

_What the kid must think of me...?_

He growled, pacing furiously around his spacious bed chamber. What a fool! How hard could it be to remember a simple promise made to a most loved one? His pale eyes grew downcast. Too hard for the mighty Kaiba Seto, so it seemed. If it hadn't been for the parcel he wouldn't have become so distracted.

His eyes darted to the pillows of his four-poster bed, under which he had hastily stuffed the object, out of prying eyes sight. He didn't quite know why he had hidden it really. He had no security cameras in his chamber, and nobody but himself ever entered, not even the cleaners or Mokuba.

_Mokuba…_

He strolled through the first few ground floor rooms and corridors of the darkened Kaiba Manor in search for the kid. Thinking about it, he would have fully expected to be bowled over by a mop of black hair as soon as he had set foot through the front door, but he couldn't even hear the kid bustling about as he impatiently waited for his nii-sama. Having reached the kitchen he noticed a small figure slumped over the bar, short legs curled smartly under the tall stool. Soft snores floated through the dimness. Seto crept over and saw small, empty dinner bowls with chopsticks neatly parked beside his brother's sleeping head, and next to him a place had been set with small bowls each of rice, some kind of fish, miso soup, cooked vegetables and pickled vegetables, all of which was now stone cold. He smiled sadly at Mokuba's display of hopeful expectancy, and was pained by the fact that he, honourable big brother, nearly always let him down.

A long white hand stretched out and lost itself in Mokuba's black tresses, caressing tenderly. Seto shimmied onto one of the bar stools and slouched over the counter, his other hand supportting his pointed chin. He continued to idly play with Mokuba's hair as his eyes blindly roamed the kitchen. Jars of pasta in every shape (Seto was half-heartedly digging in his heels against the rise of yōshoku – western cuisine – but the pasta had completely seduced him), a vast rack of spices, a sizable collection of used coffee mugs on the counter by the dishwasher… Seto sighed, suffering from the rare curiosity of what it was all for.

What _was_ it all for? Why go to work in the morning, run a company, build an empire – why do all that when a simple, plainly wrapped package can bring a person tumbling down the mountain that he had previously stood so proudly at the summit of, waving his flag of victory?

'I dunno Mokie,' he murmured nonchalantly to the darkness. Mokuba stirred, shifting slightly. Seto gazed at him fondly, not able to control the light tug at the corners of his mouth. That kid was so cute when he was asleep. Seto allowed himself to display a full, tooth-bearing smile of genuine affection before heaving himself to his feet. He took Mokuba in his sinewy arms and carried him up to bed, remembering to leave the door open the exact distance that he knew the kid preferred.

A single blue eye peered through the slim gap as Mokuba rolled over in his sleep. No need to worry him about that parcel too soon…

* * *

Three smart knocks on the door.

'What now, Roland?'

Roland slid into the room. Seto was always a little bemused, or perhaps even a little _a_mused by the man's obvious confidence when stepping into his office.

'_Well?'_

'Sir, the woman who sent the brown-paper parcel –'

Seto stood up abruptly, shooting around his desk with great haste to stand directly in front of Roland, eyes revealing an unbeknownst imploring.

'_Yes?_ Did you find out who she is? Where did she come from? Did you file up a report on her background…?'

Roland seemed a little unnerved by his boss's breathless torrent of questions; there must have been something really rather interesting in that boring looking parcel.

'Uh, I suppose... I suppose you could ask her yourself, sir.'

Seto blinked. 'What?'

'She's waiting just outside –'

Roland quickly cut himself short at the look on Seto's face, who just stood wide-eyed and obviously aghast.

'She's out there _now?'_

Roland nodded, suddenly sheepish under the CEO's death glare.

'Roland, I've never known you to act so unofficially!' His voice could have cut through iron. 'So _unprofessional!_I'm supposed to be informed of every visitor who wants to see me before they even leave the Atrium! I know you don't like using the intercom Roland, but _honestly!'_

Imitating a goldfish for a fleeting moment, Roland gathered himself and ploughed onwards. 'But sir, she told me who she is; I really think you should speak with her while she's in the frame of mind to do so –'

'_Say what?'_ Seto screeched, eyes flashing with a dangerous steely glint. 'Roland, what the fuck is wrong with you? I've _never_ known such –'

His voice died. A woman, undoubtedly _the_ woman, had just stepped through the door. She was tall and slender, with hard grey eyes and thick black hair that had been pulled back in a smart up-do that Seto didn't recognise from the current fashions in Domino. She had a stern look to her, as though she was certainly not one to be crossed. She must have been of great feminine beauty and elegance when she was younger, but now she stood like an unchallengeable monolith of striking majesty in the doorway of Kaiba Seto's office. The head secretary hovered behind her, flustered, before tutting and returning to her desk.

Between the woman who stood before Seto now and the woman in the photos of the picture album she'd sent yesterday in that brown-paper parcel, there was a vast difference in her visible disposition.

'Roland, leave us.'

Roland hurriedly obliged, out the door still halfway through his bow.

A thick silence suddenly made the office unbearably stifling. Whilst Seto struggled internally with the unfurling event, the woman seemed perfectly unphased. Not an inkling of emotion on that divine, angular face. Regaining his trademark composition, Seto stood to his full height and peered down his nose at the person who had suddenly sent unwanted waves crashing through his generally controllable life.

'Who are you?' he asked coldly. Her stormy eyes glittered strangely.

'I suppose you recognise me from the photos I sent you yesterday…'

Seto growled. 'That is _not_ the answer to my question.' Of course he recognised her. She appeared in every other photo of the first few pages of the album, sometimes just her and his mother, her and both his parents, her holding what suspiciously looked like a baby version of himself…

'I will ask just once more, _who are you?'_

Her eyes blazed dangerously and she retorted with blinding swiftness and aggression to match his own.

'I am Sasaki Muhoshi. You may call me oba-chan, or Auntie Mu.'

Silence.

'_Oba-chan? Auntie?'_

* * *

Mokuba put the receiver back into the cradle. Seto had sounded really out of sorts, he sounded almost shaken. He frowned as he went over what his brother had urgently gushed over the phone.

'_Mokuba, yes, hi – yeah I know I don't usually ring during the day – no, what? No – listen listen listen, I need you to do something – what are you on about? Shh! Listen! I need you to go into my room – no I didn't forget my laptop, no, I just need you to go into my room and look under my pillow for something okay? What? Mokuba, I lost my last milk tooth years ago…'_

Mokuba fidgeted with his sleeve as he headed up the second flight of stairs to Seto's bed chamber. He never went in there, he never really had any reason to because Seto spent very little time in there. He wondered what on earth nii-sama could possibly want him to look at that he kept under his pillow. He bit his lip nervously as he reached the landing.

'_Yes, I know you never go in there, I promise you're allowed in there – stop interrupting! No! Everything is fine Mokie – what? Yeah well maybe I want to start calling you that again… No, just look under my pillows, you'll find it and I just want you to have a good look at the first few pages – what do you mean you don't like books? It's not, ugh, just do it! And then I want you to be here in my office in an hour, I'm sending Roland over…'_

He was at the door, turning the brass handle, stepping into unfamiliar territory. He glanced about, Seto had neither opened his curtains that morning nor had he made his bed. Then again, Mokuba wasn't sure if Seto ever did those things anyway. He shuffled over to the large four-poster bed, scrambled onto it and burrowed a hand under the large, feather pillows. He felt the corner of something, and dragged it out. _It looks boring,_ he though dejectedly, as he flipped it open, not taking any care to have it on the first page.

A loud gasp escaped his lips at the sight before him, just as Roland let himself in through the front door two levels down. Roland had known who the woman was even before Seto, and had recognised the urgency in the CEO's voice when he had ordered him to fetch Mokuba and bring him to the office in precisely two hour's time. Roland knew exactly what Seto wanted those one hundred and twenty minutes for.

* * *

Much to his displeasure, Seto realised that he could not stop his hands from shaking, even when he clenched them into tight fists. He leant back slowly in his chair, grimacing as the leather squeaked.

'Auntie Mu' had seated herself on one of the low sofas by the wall, her back strictly rigid, steel eyes never leaving him. Seto was beginning to realise that he must have inherited his severe nature from his mother's side of the family, where this woman had come from.

'My younger sister was so pleased to have borne a son. She hated little girls…'

Seto glanced up at the mention of his mother, only to quickly direct his eyes somewhere else when he realised that that she was still drilling into him with her hard glare.

'Yes,' she continued, a slight drawl in her voice. 'She was ecstatic over you. I can't imagine her joy after having a second boy. Had I known I would have sent her my congratulations… Mokie, did I hear you call him?'

'Mokuba,' Seto corrected in a dead tone, slipping in and out of his daze. Suddenly his eyes hardened and stared fiercely at the woman on his couch.

'So why are you here then, _oba-chan__?_ I suspect you've come to worm your way into our lives now that you've spent all our inheritance, now that you've heard we've been making our own billions?'

Seto was solid ice, so cold that he could burn skin. Aunt Muhoshi displayed her first expression of genuine emotion; she looked horrified.

'How _dare_ you!' she snapped, reminding Seto of a sleek barracuda. 'I mean, I don't really expect you to know much about your true relatives but if I had known what had happened to you… such… I mean, _I never –'_

She stopped herself right there, suddenly appearing to be quite overcome by her surge of emotion. Seto scowled.

'You never what?' he demanded harshly. She glanced over to him. Seto blinked. He could see the rawest pain in her eyes, and something beyond the pain, deep and stagnant and untouched.

'I never knew what happened to you… you were still a baby when it happened, that's probably why you didn't recognise that I was your aunt from the photographs I sent you.'

'When what happened?'

'Well,' she said, taking a deep breath, evidently pulling herself together for something difficult. 'I was… disconnected – and by that I suppose I mean disowned...' She trailed off, eyes fixed unseeingly on some random point in the office. Seto cleared his throat, bringing her back to reality. 'Ah, I was disowned from the family in Japan, completely ostracized beyond logical reasoning. I won't bore you with the details. I moved around the West, eventually settling in Britain where I had visited your parents whilst they had lived there –' (Seto's eyebrows flickered) '– I didn't hear a single word from anyone after that, not even your mother. I always thought it was due to the fact that she never wanted to talk to me again, or, as I sometimes allowed myself to fantasise, because the rest of the family would not allow her to contact me…' Aunt Muhoshi visibly shuddered. 'I never once imagined that it was death which kept her silent.'

A muscle in Seto's jaw ticked insanely. His teeth were clenched and he was sure that if he had laser vision, half of his office floor would be gone by now. He didn't know what to think. If she was disowned, if she hadn't even known about Mokuba, or that her sister, his mother, had died, then she can't have possibly been one of the demons that had stolen all of his inheritance and left him and little Mokie at that godforsaken orphanage. He tried to outweigh his emotion with this coherent reasoning, but his mind was still reeling from the revelation that his small, two-part family might become a trio after today.

'Why–' Seto had to pause and swallow, his dry throat stifling his words '–why were they in Britain?' he asked.

'Hmm?'

'You said you settled in Britain because that's where my mother and father had lived?' The words 'mother and father' felt terrible on his tongue, like he was trying to eat soap and speak an alien language at the same time.

'Why were they there? It's where your mother met your father.' Aunt Muhoshi straightened her back, rearranged her crossed legs. 'Asami-chan – your mother – went to live there during her placement year at university; she found work experience with something boring, something called... I don't know, it was a publishing company... anyway, she met him, he gave you to her, they got married the Western way before anyone could tell she was pregnant. They waited until you were born before they came back to Japan –' She faltered for a moment, as if she was about to say something she wasn't supposed to say '–then they returned to Japan to have a proper wedding and I was gone a few months later.'

Seto's head felt numb. His skin was cold and crawled like a bed of ants. 'They only got married because – because... was I an _accident?'_

Aunt Muhoshi smiled sadly. 'Most of us are accidents, my dear. Asami-chan was very pleased with you. You were a veritable blessing.'

Seto sat in silence for the longest few minutes whilst he slipped into a lagoon of uncertainty. He grasped all around inside the dark, cold space to find a thread of sense, any kind of tendril to cling onto, something to stop him falling deeper into this uncontrollable flood. His fingers found nothing and he realised he was powerless.

'Asami...Oka-san, Haha*... I can't remember Chichi's name.'**

Muhoshi was watching him carefully. 'He didn't die until you were much older, you don't remember him?'

'I can't –' Seto scrabbled desperately inside his whirling brains for a memory, the shape of a nose, the slant of the eyes, an ugly tie or at least a scent. All he could summon was a vaguely warped interpretation of himself, much older and much friendlier and with lighter hair. 'I can't remember Chichi.'

The sofa creaked as Muhoshi left it, pacing like a cat to stand in front of Seto's desk so that she could look closer at his face, which was now as white as his duelling coat and as stretched as a piece of paper. His eyes were blazing coldly, all anger and pain and confusion at the same time. Muhoshi noted, however, with a sting of something unpleasant, that it was mostly anger.

'I heard that Kaiba bastard adopted you from the orphanage,' she stated casually. 'I suppose that's how you managed to end up at the head of his empire.' She cast him a strange glare. 'You seem not to remember your family, or even your true name. Kaiba Gozaburo must have conditioned you quite expertly.'

Seto's thin lips pulled back over perfectly straight, snarling teeth. 'So, remind me.'

She sighed, not unlike the way Seto would sigh when Mokuba insisted on asking annoying questions over and over again, even though it was certain he must know the answer. A click of the tongue and she was perched elegantly on the edge of his desk, bouncing a stiletto on her toes. Clearly a bad habit that she couldn't control.

'Your father was an Englishman. He and your mother met at the publishing place where she was fulfilling her work experience for university. He was only a pencil-pusher in that respect, but was good at lots of other things. I heard he built light, one-man aircraft in his spare time or something – had many a broken bone from trying to fly some of them.'

Seto's eyes were very wide, his breathing was becoming laboured and he was leaning in. 'What was his name?'

Muhoshi chuckled. 'He was called Phillip Sturminster. I teased Asami-chan so badly. _Mrs_ _Asami Sturminster_. It was so silly.'

'Sturminster?' The wheels turned ferociously in Seto's head. 'So... my name is _Sturminster Seto?'_

A great bark of laughter blasted from Muhoshi's mouth. She slipped from the desk to sidle over to the sofa, leaning to fish something out her handbag. A packet of cigarettes.

'In your father's land you would be Mr Seto Sturminster. Your mother chose your Japanese given name.' She stopped to light her cigarette, savouring the clouds of smoke for a few moments. 'Once they returned to Japan however, our mother, your Obaa-san, rejected your Anglo heritage, bare-facedly in front of your poor father. You were always referred to as Sasaki Seto. It was the name on every bit of documentation we had to fill out concerning you. Your Anglo blood was all but stamped out of acknowledgment, the family was so ashamed. Oka-san did her very best to dishonour your father, send him back to Britain, but I don't think the British have the same concepts of dishonour as we do.'

Seto felt nauseous. He had a huge capacity to receive large blocks of confusing information in one go, it was simply a part of his job, but this was different. The demons from his past, his very own blood family, were beginning to take a greater and more far more foreboding shape than they ever had before. They had ruined him and Mokuba, abandoned them at the orphanage, simply because their family had produced half-cast children and had been humiliated by it.

'What's it like?'

'What's what like?'

'Britain. England.'

Aunt Muhoshi smiled at him. She was leaning comfortably into the sofa now, quite at ease. She had finished her cigarette and was casually plucking a fresh one from the packet. 'It's wet. And cold. They've got a war going on in the West at the moment, I'm sure you've heard.'

Seto nodded pensively, linking his long fingers in front him and leaning on his elbows. Europe was warring against itself once more, for reasons he didn't bother to try to understand. Russia was getting prickly, America was trying to sit on the fence and the East was thankfully, for the time being, staying well out of the way.

'One of the reasons you left, I suppose?'

A nod in response. 'It's very dangerous in Europe at the moment. I don't understand why it's all happening. It won't be long before missiles start flying... I don't understand. I've left it all –'

She disappeared into an internal darkness, not noticing how her cigarette spilled ash onto her lap. She sucked in a large amount of air through her nostrils, coming back to Earth.

'Yes. Cold and wet. But quite beautiful when it wants to be, especially in the countryside. When there aren't little green army men running around and tanks getting in the way. But still, plenty of beauty.'

Her eyes glazed over as she appeared to drift away into a daydream, a small, cheerless smile quivering on her dark lips.

Seto gazed at her, leaning deeper into his elbows on his desk. She looked very similar to his mother. Seeing her, sprawled contentedly on his sofa like a giant Siamese cat made him feel oddly… comforted. He kept suffering from bouts of old memories, strange, disjointed scenes that he had completely forgotten, swimming to the forefront of his mind. He remembered losing his first tooth, the bad flu where he couldn't stop hallucinating that all the pictures on his Duel Monsters cards were moving, watching a stray dog get hit by a car in the street by their house… his bottom lip quivered. Everything he had so diligently locked away for safekeeping was now exploding right before him, like the over-spilling guts of a knife-victim. No matter how much he tried to stuff it all back where it came from, it just wouldn't fit; it just spilled back out as if there was more than before, making a vile oozing mess everywhere.

He found himself rising to his feet, moving around his desk and sitting carefully on the sofa beside his aunt. Their eyes locked, equally pale, equally scorching, equally matched. Seto didn't know what to do; he barely remembered why he had come to sit on the sofa in the first place. She was hanging on her own tenterhooks, her nostrils quivering, her strong jaw visibly clenched. She too, seemed not to know what to do next. Seto wondered what she must be thinking, looking into the face of a fierce young man that had somehow once been the happy, dribbling butterball he'd seen her holding and crooning over in the photos she'd sent. How strange he must look, with his chiselled features in place of the fat cheeks and the evidence of a shaved beard in place of the peachy velvet, his smart suit in place of the bulky nappy.

Then quite suddenly she made a start, or maybe just twitched badly, Seto couldn't be sure, but if she had decided to do something she had very quickly changed her mind about it. He gulped. He wondered how his mouth could be so dry when his cheeks felt so very wet.

Aunt Muhoshi's eyes were at a quiver to match his lip now. He realised that he had clutched her upper arm with both hands at some point, staring fixedly at her face. He felt a strange childish desperation, for what he couldn't be sure. He didn't quite like the feeling, he seemed lost, he seemed to be falling, tumbling down. Businessmen didn't have time to feel lost, they couldn't afford to tumble, but there he was, the mighty Kaiba Seto – or Sasaki Seto, or Mr Sturminster, he didn't know anymore – clinging urgently as though his very life were at stake onto the arm of a woman who he had only known about for two hours.

Seto's eyes were prickling and blurring worse than before, they were hot and his head felt as though someone was trying to squeeze it through a small pipe. Then something trickled down his chin and fell onto his lap. His nose began to leak too.

_How undignified,_ he thought wryly.

He sniffed and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, ready to draw back and compose himself properly when something hit him and clutched him tightly. Aunt Muhoshi had flung herself at him, her cigarette forgotten in the ash tray, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tightly. The sensation felt peculiar coming from someone who wasn't half his height and called Mokuba, but nonetheless it wasn't unpleasant. He gave into the embrace, wrapping his long arms around her thin back, burying his face in her shoulder. Seto was used to giving the kind of hug that was intended to comfort the receiver, but now _he_ was the one being comforted. Aunt Muhoshi had one tender hand on the back of his head, softly stroking his chocolate hair. A bizarre turn of events to say the least. Seto blinked fresh tears into the fabric that donned her shoulder, allowing himself to completely melt into her, letting her hold him like a oversized ragdoll.

Over their heads on the wall the clock turned to three in the afternoon, exactly two hours after Seto had sent Roland to fetch Mokuba.

* * *

Roland and Mokuba bundled into a lift, both hissing at the contraption to take them to the top floor faster. Every couple of seconds or so they glanced at each other, their nerves chewing on their patience. Mokuba had the album in his hands. In the bed chamber he had opened it up somewhere in the middle, on a page that had a large photo of a young, smiling Seto holding him, a grey-eyed baby with messy black hair. He had flipped to the front and proceeded to look at every single picture in it. He recognised two recurring people, his mother and father; he had seen one picture of them before. There was another woman in a couple of the first pages who greatly resembled his mother. She must be an aunt or something. There were pictures of her with their mother and father, others of just her, beaming gorgeously at the camera, and several of her holding a baby Seto, laughing and cooing at him. He had felt slightly disappointed when he found no pictures of the jolly woman holding him when he was a baby. As a matter of fact, she seemed to abruptly disappear from the album.

_What could this all mean?_ He wondered frantically. _Why does Seto want to see me so urgently? Why did I have to look at these photos and why is Roland acting to strangely?_

The lift emitted a smart _ding_ and the doors parted graciously for them. Mokuba was gone in a flash, already at the door to Seto's office before Roland had come hurtling round the corner, startling the secretary, who in her shock promptly scattered a pile of paper she'd been shuffling. Mokuba didn't bother to buzz in or knock, he never did. He rushed through, briefly mystified by the lack of Seto sitting at his usual place behind his desk, and then he spotted them.

The jolly, dark-haired woman Mokuba had seen beside his parents in those first couple of photos was reclining on a squishy, leather office couch to the side of the room, with another figure huddled on his side next to her, his head resting in her lap. Mokuba blinked. Roland came in, gasping lightly at the scene before him. The woman merely smiled, never taking her slender hand from Seto's hair where she was lovingly massaging his scalp. His hands were curled up under his chin and his knees were bent so that he could fit his long frame on the sofa beside her. His light snores were the only sound in the room, but Mokuba felt sure that half of Domino could hear his own thundering heartbeat, pounding madly against his ribcage like the hooves of a mad horse against a stable door.

The album had fallen from his hands to the floor, and he might have keeled over from incomprehension if Roland hadn't placed a firm hand on his shoulder. The woman smiled wider yet, tilting her handsome head to the side as she took in the sight of the young boy standing in front of her, looking so uncannily similar to his mother.

'Hello Mokuba,' she said softly. 'I'm your Aunt Muhoshi.'

* * *

*Haha = Mummy

**Chichi = Daddy

Oka-san = Mother

Oba-san[chan] = Aunt [Auntie]

Obaa-san = Grandmother

* * *

**Author's Note****:** I'm so sorry if that was boring. I think the original was pretty boring anyway. Thanks for taking the time to read, let me know what you think! Feedback is worth every letter in gold to the author.


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